The Jeweled Cobra

By Colin Ross

Khantai Bokeo was born a halfbreed in Laos during the Vietnam War. He escaped with the nuns from Laos to Thailand, where he was sexually abused by the priest in charge of the Thai camp for the church. During a painful sexual encounter with the priest, he stabbed and killed Father Mark, and was secreted out of Thailand to Boston where he grew old enough to finally escape the cloistered prison.
Khantai, warped by the hidden society, became a gigolo of wealthy gay men and used his body and handsome Amerasian face to destroy his many lovers. The Lesbian nuns who raised him tried to save him from self-destruction, but Khan seemed destined to travel the dark path.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Nov 13, 2006
• ISBN: 9781462815876

Colin Ross

Colin Ross was born in 1941. He obtained a B.A. in History and English from the University of British Columbia at Victoria and a Dip.Ed. from the University of Oxford. After five years in the teaching profession, he entered the world of business where he worked in Canada as an investment advisor for 35 years.

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

The torrential rain pounds the tin roof as Louang strains with the onset of childbirth—her sixth. This labor shouldn’t be so difficult, but the contractions seem very odd. She groans. In an hour, she should be finished, recovering on the grass-mat floor. The wave starts again. Bright blood oozes from the stretched vaginal opening. It is the blood of injury, not normal childbirth. Louang and her mother know there is a problem, but why? She fed the monks daily. She spoke to the baby within, giving it loving strokes and praise as it grew. Why?

The next agonizing contraction momentarily paralyzes her. She lies on her side, bent in half with pain she has never known—even during her firstborn. Does she have a devil in her body? Mxai, Louang’s mother, whispers—chants—a Cathlobuddhist plea for relief and protection from evil spirits.

The rain is accompanied by crashes of thunder and lightning, and the stilted wood house rolls on the impact of the sound waves.

Louang screams, SAVE US!

The single swinging forty-watt lightbulb is extinguished by an electrical bomb. Iron kettles and metal plates catapult from the wall in desperate attempts to drive away the spirit of death that permeates the one and only room.

The family was sent away from the birthing room when labor commenced, so Louang is left alone with her mother. The rainwater floods under the house, roaring and bouncing against the wood poles. The baby refuses to exit. It is turned sideways. Only one arm, the left one, leaves the womb.

Louang wonders if the gods are punishing her for the indiscretion with the handsome American airman, a secret held in her heart and never told. Have they put evil spirit into baby? she wonders.

It was only once, a late-afternoon tryst when Meo was away training with the Americans. He was gone many months. she knew she had sinned immediately after it happened. The gods knew also and are taking their revenge.

The rain stops abruptly, and Louang yells into the silent darkness. Mxai thrusts her hand into her daughter’s bleeding vagina, and slowly, carefully turns the baby inside. Mxai uses her other hand to control the manipulation on the outside of Louang’s abdomen. This technique she has used many times on the goats when they can’t deliver.

Louang continues to scream, crying in pulsating spasms. The baby’s head moves into place and begins to slide down the birth canal. Mxai removes her hand and arm, slimy with blood and birth fluids. Perspiration beads and rolls into her eyes, stinging like the remnants of chilies left on her fingers after preparing a meal. Mxai brushes her forehead. The sweat mixes with tears, forming a cocktail of grief and worry.

Mxai is now aware that Louang did something terrible. She had delivered five other babies without problems. This one will be marked for life—the left arm is bad luck. The head crowns, then the shoulder, and with one great push, the membrane-encased object slides through and into Mxai’s hands. A torrent of blood gushes—much, too much. The baby boy is finally born.

Mama, please forgive me. Please ask Meo forgive me. I have give you devil.

No worry, daughter, he no have mark, Mxai says as she ties the umbilical cord and cuts it with a kitchen knife.

Mama, I have die. He father not Meo. He father American major Jimmy Stark. I no worthy for husband and family. I have fail ancestors. Please take boy and raise him—away from others. You see … he be different.

Mxai is torn by the revelation, and tears rush down her face, spotting the baby as they splatter on his face.

Trying to recover enough to speak, Mxai says, No make bad talk. You mark baby from inside. Hush! You no die. It hard birth.

Mxai knows it was not just a hard birth. The boy was born in a terrible storm. The light was turned off by lightning, the left arm first—all signs of evil spirits. But Mxai loves her daughter and will protect the secret. She examines the boy as she cleans him. Meo no is father? Louang right: she give devil.

Louang continues to hemorrhage, losing her life force. She feels no pain and can breathe easier now. With her eyes closed, Louang sees colors and beautiful lights. Her body relaxes and becomes unaware of the hard floor beneath it. Mxai continues cleaning the baby with her back to her daughter. There are no cries in the room, no rain bullets on the roof. The baby breathes silently.

He handsome. No worry.

Thank you, Mama.

Louang takes a long breath and exhales slowly. She can no longer see with her eyes open, so she leaves them closed. With her exhalation, all care and fear flow from her body. She is at peace. She has brought her boy into earth, and she can now leave, knowing her mother will raise him with love and protection. I want name him Khantai. He strong and fight hard to born.

Mxai washes the blood from her hands and arms, wraps Khantai in a piece of cloth saved just for this purpose, and takes him to Louang. Her daughter is too weak to hold her baby but feels the weight of the squirming bundle on her chest. She smells the odors of childbirth and feels the hands of her mother touch her face. Khantai rests on his mother’s breast. His soul touches hers as the three of them embrace in the now quiet tropical night.

Mxai attends to her daughter’s bleeding and begins cleaning the traumatized labial tissue.

You have hard one, daughter. This be last. When you better, I give you tea for no more babies. Next one maybe kill you.

Mxai knows that the baby will not be accepted. He is obviously not Lao. Mxai starts preparing her daughter for her husband and waiting family. She will tell them the baby was stillborn, that she had buried it. She will bury the placenta and show them the bloody rags. No one must ever know the secret. Meo would kill Louang if he found out.

Her daughter is not moving. Mxai checks for a heartbeat. There is none. She moves Khantai off Louang’s chest and begins vigorously rubbing her skin, arms, legs, and hands. Still no heartbeat. After ten minutes, Mxai sits back and looks at her daughter lying motionless.

The baby boy rests beside his mother’s dead body. He has fought a great battle just to be born; now he must fight another, harder battle. There is no time to mourn—that will come later. Now Mxai must act quickly to dispose of the baby’s afterbirth. She only has minutes to hide the boy before the family returns to check on Louang.

Flesh of my body, gods be kind you, she chants as she covers her daughter and wraps the placenta for burial. Mxai silently leaves the darkened hut. I no come back. Baby not know about this house. Evil spirits now here.

Thunder rolls across the nearby mountains and down into the Hmong village. Mxai hesitates at the doorway for the inevitable flash. In two seconds, the crash erupts, exerting its power in the tin rooftops. The explosion rips into the hut, vibrating the two-by-eight corrugated pieces above Mxai’s head. The vibration continues, lighting the birth/death room.

Louang’s face, gray by now, reflects an even grayer cast as the lightning cleanses her soul. Her long black hair—always wrapped high on her head, except for washing—crawls onto the floor. It frames Louang’s head in a halo. She is the angel of death.

Mxai glances at her beloved daughter—prone, lit by the fingernails of the gods. She crosses herself, then scurries down the pole steps, to the water-covered ground. She carries two bundles across the cleared garden areas, bent at the waist, trying to protect them from the new rainstorm. Another crash!

Mxai stands silhouetted by another astrolight. The sound deafens her and startles Khantai into wailing. No, baby … not here! She ducks into the trees and jungle growth. The sound of the rain obliterates the baby’s crying.

Peacocks sit high in the trees, screaming, cursing the downpour’s interruption of their night vigils. Their long tails funnel sheets of rainwater onto the path where Mxai inches her way.

Rest in God, Mxai whispers, placing one of the bundles in a depression left by a rock she has pushed aside. She replaces the rock on top of the bundle, its weight forces red-tinged fluid through the cloth wrapping. I come back soon.

Mxai marks the place with a stick pushed vertically into the soft mud, picks up Khantai, and proceeds on her way down the trail.

Two hills more.

After an hour of treacherous walking, Mxai sees the space between two giant forest trees. She recognizes the roof of a small structure and cautiously walks toward it. A small flicker of candlelight waves through the storm.

Baby, we here … you safe.

The soaked grandmother stands at the top of the steps, motionless, waiting to be addressed by one of the three adults inside.

Mi Hua, we have another gift. Could you speak to its mother? asks Sister Maria, acknowledging the presence of the woman and baby. The Laotian nun takes the baby from Mxai’s arms and guides her into the room. She’s cold, Sister Gloria. Give her some soup and tea … and a dry quilt.

Mxai and Sister Mi Hua sit by the red coals in the iron dish. They talk in Lao while the other two nuns check the newborn Khantai.

I can already see why, Gloria, he’s part white. Come, children, see your new brother, says Maria in broken Lao.

After about twenty minutes, Mxai and Mi Hua stand, and Mxai quietly leaves the house.

Don’t let her go tonight—it’s too dangerous. She must sleep first, says Sister Gloria.

It’s another horror story, Maria, Mi Hua says. This one’s worse than the last. She’s his grandmother. She says she has to return to explain to the family about the ‘dead’ baby … his mother died in childbirth. I will tell you everything.

God be with her, Mi Hua. We have a small one this time. I hope he survives, says Maria.

I hope his grandmother survives. She doesn’t care to live anymore. It was her daughter who died, killed by the evil spirits. She carries a very dangerous secret.

The three nuns and their children watch as the hunched figure disappears into the jungle, lit by sporadic sky flashes.

She says she will come back to see her grandson, says MiHua

CHAPTER 2

The mornings break early in the Laotian Spring. The sisters awaken to the sounds of the yard rooster perched high on the orphanage roof. He calls his harem of laying hens to get out of their coop. His calls combine with the flock of other feathered alarm clocks. Without them, the sun would never appear.

The sisters wash privately in pottery bowls of water collected the previous day. After bathing, they gather the children, checking them for signs of overnight mosquito bites, louse nit, and general sleep damage. The tropical climate promotes infections and parasite problems, if not attended daily. This morning routine is even more important than early prayers. Sister Maria Elena, a transplant from Spain, supervises the cleaning ritual. She is in charge of the orphanage, accompanied by two other sisters of the cloth.

Their duty started several years ago when American and French soldiers fathered and abandoned children during their visits to Pakxong. Since the American government would not admit to having personnel in Laos, the children, who became outcasts, were abused or left to starve. The church, upon hearing of the deplorable situation, sent the three nuns to Southern Laos, to create a protectorate for the children in an isolated area of the Boloven Plateau.

Khan, you never have a speck of dirt on you, Sister Maria says to her eleven-year-old charge as she checks his head, underarms, and private areas.

Thank you, Sister, he replies, pulling on his patched trousers and shirt.

Today you get to collect the eggs, then I’m going to teach you how to cook them.

Gathering eggs is a privilege granted only to the most responsible and careful of the group, since it relies on the morning prizes for its main meal. Khan is already an expert rice maker, and now he is about to be brought into Sister Maria’s kitchen. She will train him, give him a profession to use when he leaves and joins the other world.

I’m going to teach you how to make special food from Spain. You are intelligent and have delicate hands, the hands of an artist. You need to learn the finer things. We will leave the field duties to the others who lack your touch. Go bring in the eggs and feed Rojito some rice so he will be your friend. Remember, even warriors can lay down their swords when there is good food to eat.

I find one giant egg just for you, Sister, if you tell me Grandmother story again.

You little scamp. Your bribery works every time with me. Now get out of here. The eggs will turn into babies while we talk. She gives Khan a loving shove out the door, putting the egg basket, which is half his size, over his head.

The past eleven years have been both good and bad. When Khan is busy or in school, he is content. When he sits idle, or worse, when he lies on his mat at night, his mind creates memories of a mother he never knew, but to whom he somehow has a physical connection. His recollections all come from Sister Maria and her stories of his family, his grandmother. Most of the stories are no better than half-truths, but they allow him to form mind pictures of the people he belonged to and what they looked like.

Sister Maria never told him the truth about his father—the American father—so Khan thinks only about a Lao father. All the children in the orphanage are of similar origin—half-breeds. Khan thinks his mother, father, sisters, and brothers were all killed in a bombing raid on their village and that his grandmother hid him under the floor of their hut and played dead until the soldiers moved out of the village. Sister Maria told Khan that his grandmother had brought him to the orphanage for safety, and would come to get him when the war ends. The stories carry him through the long, lonely nights. He waits patiently for his grandmother to return.

Khan appears at the kitchen door opening, the hand-woven basket heavy with the morning’s treasures. On top and in the middle is a larger-than-normal egg, which is slightly shinier than the others.

I find one giant egg. Khan struggles to hand Sister Maria the heavy basket.

What a beautiful one. Where did you find it?

Under red chicken, he says as he lowers his face.

The red hen, huh? She must be sitting with the duck—this is a duck’s egg. Sister Maria chides Khan, who pulls his head up to look into her eyes. You told me a fib. Were you afraid I wouldn’t tell you the grandmother story without a giant egg? You sweet child, you are more important than an egg.

I tell you true, Sister … under red chicken.

Khan is good at lying. He leaves out the part about finding the egg under the duck first, then putting it under the chicken.

I know your tricks, carino. And since you told a lie, I have to punish you. No cooking lesson today.

You lie me too. Khan looks down.

What lie? You little imp, what lie? Sister Maria’s face reddens.

The lie … my father. Other kids tell me I not here if father Lao. They tell me father American, like they. Khan’s eyes fill with tears as he tries not to offend the only parent he has ever known.

There is a long silence as both angels stand in sudden nakedness, crying, reaching for answers. Sister Maria Elena bends down to the broken boy’s level. How long have you known?

Last night, in sleeping room.

You are so young to carry this burden. Yes, I told you lies. And now, I have no choice but to tell you all the truth I know. I don’t know very much. You are too young for this kind of truth.

Sister, I want know why Grandmother no come get me. I want know Mother and Father. I want know everything.

I am so sorry to have told you untruths. I will tell you what I know, and then you have to learn the rest on your own. I will help you all I can. We love you here. You are a precious spirit. Now I have to teach you how to cook Spanish eggs, even duck eggs. Come, carino, into my kitchen. There are many wonderful secrets here. Secrets I will share with only you.

She wraps her arms around the sobbing boy and guides him gently into her special room full of hanging herbs, garlic, chilies, and dried meats.

First, wipe your tears and wash your hands. Then we will wash the eggs in soap and water. There are many diseases on the white shells. We will cook and talk.

Sister … is my mother die?

CHAPTER 3

Meo Bokeo sits on the roof of the village temple watching the sky. Today is clear and blue. The rice fields are deep green when the sky